Skip to main content


If you have the financial and technical ability to do so, it's probably a good time to set up a Mastodon server.
I'd like to slightly disagree for multiple reasons.
- New servers will be empty: no local and federated content, only follows. Even non-followed responses will be missing.
- A closed server for one or few people is a waste of resources.
- Running an open server definitely requires dedication and care, especially ensuring that it will run for extended periods of time, since it's not nice when your users observe that the server is no more.
I would advise people to pick smaller but stable (running for months or years) instances rather than starting their own. They can still migrate to their own later if the need arise.
@grin Ok, counter-counter-point: there were about 230M daily users of Twitter as of April 2022.

If we are going to welcome even a tenth of that userbase here, we're going to need a lot more account space.

I am sure that there are lots of individual server operators willing to go to $1K/month or even $10K/month to run huge servers, but I am also sure that a lot won't.

So, a friendly and hospitable thing to do is set up a server and host a few hundred or thousand new friends.
@grin
Definitely considering it. My only concern will be the time commitment to maintain/support it.
I set one up for Atlantic Canada, but mine isn't the only one! There's at least one for Halifax too. Didn't know about the Fredericton one mentioned above.

:nb_flag: :ns_flag: :pei_flag: :nfl_flag:

Evan Prodromou reshared this.

what are the requirements for a dedicated instance? As in, how many cpus, memory, and storage would I need?
@ThomasCameron512 I wrote up a guide (ish) https://www.kostaharlan.net/posts/twitter-mastodon/ tl;dr for single user instance you don’t seem to need more than the minimal digital ocean setup (1gb RAM)
A lot of confusion here!

This is to host new users from the #TwitterMigration.

If you can give them a place to park, you should.

Evan Prodromou reshared this.

I was looking into this yesterday; I’m scared of the legal headaches much more than the technical ones. For example, see this thread from @rahaeli : https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1593819064161665024?s=46&t=u_GZmX0hWGz0ffIRCCbYrw
@anulman@rahaeli yeah, but you've run public websites before right?
@anulman to put a point on it, Evan is pointing out that you’ve been at the same risk for some time.

And: that’s a US thread. Every country is different.
just did yesterday! Planning to try a Pleroma installation soon. Sadly I’m probably going to take down my pump.io instance very soon.
you knew I’d find my way here eventually. :-) I was hoping to see pump.io get #activitypub support but I never found the time to put the effort into making it happen.
I got a bit spooked reading that thread about the DMCA implications of running an instance in the US. Is there guidance out there for similar issues in Canada?

I have the financial wherewithal to run a server but maybe not for incorporating and hiring lawyers.

Evan Prodromou reshared this.

@flyingsquirrel find a couple of friends and set up a coop.

We're doing it in Canada with @cosocial .

http://cosocial.ca/
@cosocial

I'm considering it. Having been down that road before, you might be better off forming a regular non-profit and running it as if it were a co-op. I love co-ops, but they have a bunch of reporting requirements and rules non-profits don't have.